I must confess that between Facebook and Twitter, it’s very easy to be lazy and neglect my blog. It’s become crusty and, with the latest weather, quite encased in ice. But, I’m only a few days late for welcoming in the new year!

I don’t do new year’s resolutions. However, as I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed a change in my outlook, tastes and general preferences. This year, for me, has a theme: no more clutter. This applies to material things as well as mental things. The material de-cluttering started months ago and has been refreshing. The mental de-cluttering is a bit harder as it’s attached to some of the material things — do I *really* need that thingie that months of time on Google still can’t figure out? What about this project I swore I’d get to “eventually?” If eventually isn’t here by now, chances are, it’s not going to get here. So… out it goes!

On a different note, I’ve fallen in love… only I don’t know his name! I’ve made him my kitchen mascot. Here he is “au naturale.” Isn’t he awesome? He’s sitting on the island in the kitchen and greets everyone who comes into the house through the garage with his big toothy grin. He’s made from scrap metal parts and the knife and fork came with him. Have any ideas for a name? I need HELP!

Here he is decked out for the holidays in a bright colored hat and hey, how’d he get that candy cane???

He’s fiesty and lots of fun — but he needs a name! ARGH! Currently, he’s swiped the fur-trimmed hood to my daughter’s puffy pink winter coat to keep his knobby knees warm because it’s quite chilly outside here. If he doesn’t hide from the camera, I’ll see about getting a picture of him all bundled up in THAT getup!

Stitching-wise, I’ve been s-l-o-w. But, my favorite project by far HAS to be Decko! I’ve got several hundred more stitches done and should add another picture, but that would mean I’d have to stop stitching! I’ve gotten to some of the background to the left of his ear and it’s this gorgeous purply-pink! YUM! He’s such a handsome chart and a great stitch and a cat and abstract and — well, you get the idea. So no new starts for me this year. I’m hung up on a cat!

Paula, oh Paaaauuuulllllaaaaa! I have something to show you, dahlink! Here are the first ten rows across the first page of “Fragile!” It’s 800 Xs stitched 1 x 1 on some 27 count white stuff I had in my stash. It’s mostly sparkly Xs which I stitched with two strands of GlissenGloss 000 because Kreinik and I do not get along. (You can give it a click to see a more up close look and if you see that missed X rest assured that I’ve already filled it in!) This chart is totally girly and I do have to take a bit of a break from it, so I’ll be meandering over to visit my Bubble Telescope or maybe Chameleon for a bit and see how one of them do for a while.

I do have another stitchy picture to show you! This is from Ingrid Keuchel’s “Words Around a Theme” series. I’ve chosen “Peace” and I am stitching it in my most favorite variegated silk ever “Monet” from Colourstreams. It’s a fast stitch and I highly recommend her charts, they look great and she has tons of themes! I love her dancers and may just have to do one of those for my beautiful ballerina someday soon!

I don’t post about my twin dragonettes very often, but I am immensely proud of them. They have both been saving their money for months and months in order to each buy a Nintendo DS and this is the month. Within two weeks of eachother they both made their goal. I had told them early on that if they saved up enough money that I would spring for skins and screen protectors and cases. One daughter will soon be pretty in pink and the other has a cutesy gothic-anime girl on hers. There will be no problem telling their white DSes apart! I am looking forward to playing Animal Crossing with them. I picked up two used cartridges to go with my cartridge so we can have three different towns (with three separate home fruit trees of course) and visit eachother. It will be their first DS wifi experience and I can’t wait to see their reaction. For those of you who see my Twitter updates on Facebook, you’ll know that I’ve been grumping about catching fish in Animal Crossing DS as of late. *mumbles* Catching bugs is much easier! Then there’s trying to shoot the alien spaceship down. I’ve not managed that one yet…

While my blog has been taking a break, I haven’t! I’ve got a few stitching pictures for you. First up us the finished second page of Sampler Cove’s Spanish Rouge. I’m not sure how long I will be able to stand the half letters to the right of that page before I will have to finish them up. *fidgets* You can see a picture of the finished product here and if you want a drool-fest Diane is sure to please! Have I mentioned that Maestro, the kitten who now has quite the pudgy kitten belly, can be sound asleep under the sofa but as soon as I so much as pick up my stitching, is wide awake and ready to chase my floss as it goes in and out of the fabric. *sigh* He’s not ripped anything yet, but he has slowed down my stitching!

Speaking of Maestro, during February’s HAED Freebie SAL, he knocked my glass of water on to my Day Dreaming Fairy. I missed that month’s SAL and neglected to notice that the water had caused the dye to run on the fabric (it’s a Silkweaver hand-dyed solo) until the March SAL when I had to soak the whole thing to get the water marks out. So, I missed two SALs and had some ground to make up. Here is where I am now – I finally got some Xs into her hair. The picture turned out dark and yup, those are hoop marks. QSnaps and I are beyond peace talks. I have found some really nice German wooden hoops and am not going back!

Next up is a big red eye! Jasmine paints the best eyes in my opinion. And these are red! I meandered my way down to a knobby dragon scale because I was itching to see how it stitched up. The charting is amazing in that it captures the subtle shading on the dragon’s hide and the reflections in the eyes are just totally amazing. Whenever I get this piece out, I always stare at it for a while because it’s mesmerizing.

Next up is the first HAED chart I purchased: Christophe Vacher’s Sacred Hour. It’s a study in shades of brown and I find it very soothing. One of my goals for this year is to complete the top row of pages. I have 2 1/2 more to go. They are the large print sized ones, so I may just manage it. Somewhere within the column I am stitching, there is a face. I can’t see it in the chart, but there should be one there. It’s really subtle. I may just have to tear myself away from my latest start/addiction (see what I’m stitching up there? ) and get back to my browns.

Last picture, I promise!! This one is for you, Sonya! I was doing really really well. I had all the blue done down the left side of all of the first page and nearly all the grey. That is until I found out that I can’t seem to count to ten. *mumble* (At what point do my blonde moments become senior blonde moments?) I ended up frogging nearly 200 stitches which was all of the grey and a good portion of the blue. But I will not be deterred! The Two Fluffy Kitties will be back in my hoop very soon!

That’s it for this post. There will be a Chameleon update next time!

I believe I whimpered about needing some silk for Lady P’s Spanish Mystery Sampler. I have quite a bit more done, but that would require me to get up out of my chair and take another picture and I don’t have quite that level of energy yet this morning, so here’s my first picture for you to look at. It’s stitched 1 over 2 on 40 count Picture this Plus Thistle Linen with HDF’s Exemplar White Chocolate Silk. I am stitching the monochrome version of the chart. So when Lady P was talking about there being birds in this section of the chart I had no clue what she was talking about until I saw one of Nance’s WIPs. Then I got my clue. Thanks, Nance!

A month ago, I was a judge for the Northern VA Regional Odyssey of the Mind tournament. In summary, a team of 7-8 students, ranging from kindergarden up to college, get together to solve one of the six problems CCI has published for that year. My problem was #3, The Wonderful Muses. For regionals, we saw divisions I, II and III, which means Kindergarten through High School. These children were amazing! They sang, they danced, they acted, they built incredibly creative sets, they played musical instruments, one team had a victorian dress made from a plastic trash bag and another team engineered a rig that made their muse fly!

This past weekend, I had the honor of being asked to judge at the State tournament. This time, I only did division III, the high school level, as there were quite a few more entries and more than one set of judges were needed. Two of the teams we saw this day would make it to the World Finals. (No pressure on the judges at all… *gulp!*) The performances were spectacular… as a technical judge, it was hard to deduct points when we knew the teams had worked so hard to get where they were. After each performance, we talked to each team about their costumes, sets and performances and all the children were high on adrenaline and very willing to talk about what they had done. It was great to see that the arts are still alive in our children. I’ll be going back next year and years after. It was exciting to see and very rewarding!

Last week we had our usual February “wintery mix” weather. This equates to something that starts off as snow and then meanders through snow mixed with sleet, sleet, sleet mixed with freezing rain and then freezing rain. Sometimes we get snow after that. Last year we got a lovely near foot of that stuff and Mike aptly named it concrete as it took over a week for some of us to be able to get out of our driveways! Last week, however, we ended up with freezing rain. This was unfortunate as it my daughter ended up breaking her arm in ballet class that afternoon and we spent several hours in the emergency room only to emerge with her newly splinted arm to find our car completely encased in ice. (the orthopedic doctor she visited on Valentine’s Day had to put a cast on it — she chose bright pink!)

The next morning, Scott risked life and limb to take some lovely pictures… this is the part where ice can be lovely. Fortunately, he didn’t need any casts, Ace bandages or other boo-boo mending gear. These are some Crape Myrtles. We live far enough south that they love growing here. Of course, after they burst into bloom, we usually get a wicked windstorm and all the flowers blow down the street… or into the pool. *sigh*

Some of you may recall when the white pine tree fell on our house last year. That was due to wind and shallow tree roots. Of course, it doesn’t keep me from worrying that another one of the huge pine trees around will do the same even though the arborist has assured us that the remaining pines are stable. They really droop when weighed down with ice, but in this closeup, they don’t look so menacing. In this area, residential power lines have to be underground, so I don’t have that worry on my property. Whew!

We have a myriad of shrubby things around outside and when we built the house, our landscaper was very good about having the tags left on things, but that would still require me to either trapse outside into the cold and try and find the tags on nine year old shrubs or dig out the landscape plan and translate his really long latin-y names into the more common names that we know. So instead you just get my swell description of a hibernating bush with ice-covered berries on it. It’s still quite pretty!

Meanwhile, inside the house, life goes on and my Ziggy sleeps through everything without a care in the world… not even that there’s a stuffed bunny (affectionately called “Bun Bun” by Lindsey) perched on his back. Ahhhhh, to be able to relax like my ZigZig! He does curl up next to my head in the morning so I can rest my cheek on him so I have a purring pillow, so life is stripey and purrrrrrfect!

And now, this morning’s grumble… Windows deemed that I needed a security update. Ok, that’s fine with me. I was however, in the middle of something when it asked me if it wanted to “restart now.” So, I said, “No, I’ll restart later.” I did some more typing and then got up to finish packing lunches for my twin goobers and shuffle them off to the bus stop. I’m in the kitchen and I hear the unmistakable sound of my computer restarting. “Hey!” I say from the kitchen. “I said I would restart you later. When I say later, I mean MY later, not YOUR later.”

My husband, who’s switched from a PC to a MacBook, is quite amused by my situation, and tells me how I’m owned by Microsoft and scoots his way out the door to class.

There’s some serious thought to be put into switching to a computer who’s latest OS is based in Linux.

Jenni has a new look too and isn’t it cool? The coolest thing there has to be the new nursery and the new face that we’re all excited about meeting this December!

It’s a short week for me as on Friday, Jenni, Kat and I are off to Hershey, PA for CATS which is rumored to be the last time it will be happening. So we’re off to look for stitching goodies and chocolate, of course!

I’ve actually got some gobbeldygook to blog about today. Tonight I’m treating my sister-in-law (*waves to Kim*) to a concert of one of her favorite groups, Celtic Woman. While perusing her iPod one day, I noticed she had a whole lot of their music. So, when I got the calendar for the summer concerts at Wolftrap, which is about ten miles or so away from me, I confirmed with her that she really did like Celtic Woman, and then ordered a pair of tickets and sprang the surprise on her. That was a few months ago. I have, since then, been threatening to eBay the things since this is one of their only performances in Virginia and the tickets are sold out. She’s been making these “Nonononononono!” sounds when I keep telling her about the really awesome shopping sprees we can go on after I sell the tickets, but she’s not getting into the idea. *looks innocent*

Next up… Mike and Kathie are back in the country and on their way home! Their baby Sheba has missed them lots! Although she’s been quite pampered and spoiled like the queen she is, she has been sitting on our front lawn and looking wistfully up the street for their car and then down the street and her house. Soon baby, Mommy and Daddy will be home very soon!

I have a stitchy picture… I’ve completed half a page (the top half) and therefore, one third of the topmost band of Spanish Rouge.
I’m stitching this with the called for Vikki Clayton silks and I positively love this chart! I did put it away so I can finish Jan’s RR.

And finally, I have an appropriate floss toss to share as it’s Fairy Day. Someone *coughKathiecough* decided that she wanted to stitch “The Night” and that I had to stitch a PR with her, so after weeks of agonizing (and pesting Fudgey) about fabrics, I’ve chosen Silkweaver’s “Wandering Ivy” and here’s my toss!
I’m quite psyched about starting this. BUT, just in case she’s got a Chatelaine start urge, I’ve also got my fabric for Mystery X. Nyah nyah! I lined up all my duckies while she was visiting all the Mediterranean wonders of the world.

On that note, I best go spiff up for the concert… my guess is that I’ll be upstairs, dressed, and have dinner made before my sweet SIL is out of the shower. You can’t hit me, Kim, I still have time to sell your ticket…

I site this week’s most annoying example. At our grocery stores, you don’t take your cart into the parking lot. You leave it outside the store and pull your car up to the curb where you then load your bags into your car or, on some days, someone helps you load your bags into your car. Yes, I know I’m quite spoiled when it comes to grocery shopping. Anyway… I was waiting in line and, not wanting to block the crosswalk because, oh, maybe people wanted to actually walk there, I was back a bit not blocking the crosswalk. Well, some *ahem* lady behind me decided that she didn’t wish to wait her turn (even though it was very clear what I was doing) and whipped her SUV around me and squeeeeezed in front of me (blocking the crosswalk) and proceeded to wave me to back up my car so she could open the hatch on her SUV to load her groceries in. I sat there and blinked at her with one of those “you just arrived on the planet today, didn’t you?” looks.

Unbelievable.

There have been a few more “Me me me” instances, but I won’t bore you with them. They range from silly, to stupid to hurtful. What-ever. Mean people suck. Selfish ones do, too. I figure since this is my blog that I can do a little rant now and then. I’m all done now.

So… on to the largest floss-toss picture I’ve ever taken. There’s a new artist at HAED by the name of Jen Delyth and if you like Celtic art, check out her charts! I’ve just bought a new chart called Emergence and I’m trying to decide what fabric to use. With some help from people with more brain cells than I have, it’s been boiled down to an opalescent (I think).
So here’s a floss toss with an antique white (the main color everything is sitting on), a pale blue (to the right) and porcelain (to the left). I’ve also included a picture of the chart in the picture to remind myself that the primary colors in the chart are blues and greens which is the whole reason I had to get the chart right away. Soooooo… thoughts? Suggestions for other fabrics? I’m totally open here.

I also have a WIP to show you… I’m stitching this
for a very sweet lady for her birthday. It’s from Tor Rhuann Designs and is her Assisi Spring Bookmark.

Finally, I’d like to wish all Moms and Mums of babies (those with fur and not) the happiest of Mother’s Days! *HUGS!!* And face it, even when they’re 50, they’ll still be your babies! *grins*